The Sorcerer's Other Stone
by Rasial
Summary: Post Endgame fic. Dr Strange used the Soul Stone to resurrect Tony Stark on the battlefield, but he's something of an amateur when it comes to the Soul Stone and the consequences of using it. For his part, Tony Stark can't explain quite why he trusts the man who left him with those enigmatic final words on Titan. Complete.


_Post Endgame fic._

Tony Stark wouldn't have been able to explain why he trusted Strange. He wasn't a exactly a fan of all this mystic arts hyperbole - however magic worked, medallions and capes and judo robes could not have been _essential_ to its operation.

He also wasn't the biggest fan of the man - sure he'd been able to hold his own, for a moment, with one of the most powerful beings in the universe, but he was cocky - and not in the cute, loveable bad-boy way that Tony himself was cocky. More in the I-know-something-you-don't-know way and the I-have-an-intangible-and-not-easily-quantifiable-set-of-skills way. Tony hated not knowing things. And he really hated not being able to extrapolate knowledge because it was beyond his pay-grade.

Everything was Tony's pay-grade.

But although it was clear that the sorcerer didn't share everything he knew with the rest of the class, he was obviously upfront by nature. Brusque, one might say. And Tony had had enough of lying and spying for several lifetimes.

It had also been evident to Stark in the small amount of time he'd gotten to know Strange that his responsibilities took a toll. He'd seen how horrified and haggard Strange had looked after having peered through all those millions of futures. How he'd choked on the word, "One." Tony realised, when he reflected on it, that the rare display of emotion was due to having to sacrifice Tony Stark for the greater good—not out of any fondness for Tony, per se, but just out of some Hippocratic dislike of solutions that involved killing, as far as he could tell.

Once a doctor...

But obviously, even before he'd had time to reflect, Tony Stark had trusted Dr Strange. Because when Strange held up his hand to signify "one" on the battlefield, Stark had believed him. Placed his faith in him. Had died on Strange's say-so.

This was not so much remarkable in that Tony was willing to sacrifice himself, but that the famously control-freaky engineer had been willing to sacrifice himself in a plan that was not _his._ Meaning it could be flawed. Meaning it could be all for nothing.

Yet, somehow, he trusted the sorcerer and his Time Stone and his fourteen million or so futures out of a possible billion outcomes, give or take free will. And even now, after Thanos had been destroyed, the Earth saved, and Stark magically revived, he could not say precisely _why_.

Perhaps in hindsight, it helped that it had been the Doctor who had strode down to the gauntlet, after Pepper had lovingly shut Tony's eyes. Who had used magic to pluck the Soul Stone from the gauntlet's grip, and had figured out how to will it to raise Tony from the dead.

That would go some way to explain why Tony Stark was sitting on his verandah at the farm, thinking about the sorcerer instead of playing with Morgan inside, or talking to Pepper. Morgan would never stop being the delight he'd dreamed her to be. And Pepper—if she was mad at him for abandoning them in order to save the world, _for them,_ she was compartmentalising it as only Pepper truly could. They had been the parents of so much together - Stark Industries, Iron Man, and now a fully-functioning human person. It was only a while ago, he couldn't quite remember when, that she'd stopped parenting _him_.

It would be too Freudian to admit, even to himself, that he didn't like that he'd gotten too old for Pepper to mother him.

These days, he didn't like the way his own voice inside his head sounded if he thought about his family life for too long, so instead, he tapped the unit on his chest, and decided to go for a flight. He hadn't done so since he'd repaired his suit post-Thanos.

It felt like it was time for a test-drive.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y. contact Miss Potts and let her know that I'm beta testing auxiliary systems and that I'll crash at the Tower tonight."

Pepper, of course, had never taken his name.

"Miss Potts might be annoyed, Boss; she's already started making ravioli."

"Let her know."

The surge of nanobots across his skin gave him an uncanny tingle - he was retired, but not-retired. This was his life, and his afterlife. But flying made sense. It was familiar. And as he touched down, and commanded the suit to withdraw, Stark didn't even stop to wonder why he'd landed at Bleeker Street, outside the New York Sanctum, instead of Stark Tower as he'd told Pepper he would.

He knocked.

"Mr Stark." Wong answered the door, and showed him in to the parlour with the deep, Victorian armchairs. He seemed neither surprised nor particularly unsurprised to see Tony showing up at 9pm on their doorstep, but then, who could tell what Wong's feelings were from his face?

Stephen Strange jogged down the stairs, sans cloak, and Stark reflected that this was the closest to a natural, relaxed human being he had ever seen Strange look.

"Tony," The Doctor extended a hand, with those strangely New England impeccable manners, and ushered him into a seat. "What can I do for you?"

Tony sat forward in the chair. Looked past the sorcerer's shoulder, narrowing as he focused on the middle distance, then swung his gaze back to those expectant, guarded blue eyes.

"I think I'm here because I want to ask why you saved me." Tony began.

The doctor frowned minutely and tilted his head in a way Tony had begun to recognize as his "processing" face.

"Would I be right in thinking that during your time-vision on Titan, you didn't see past the point where Thanos was defeated, so you didn't know it was possible to resurrect me? You thought you were sending me on a one way trip."

The doctor sensed that Tony was waiting for confirmation, so he steepled his fingers and said, "That's correct."

"So when did it occur to you that I could be microwave-reheated?"

Strange was still acting cautiously, but drew a deep breath. "On the battlefield itself. I didn't know much about the Soul Stone until I was in its presence whilst retrieving the unworn gauntlet. Some of those stones, no mere mortal can touch. Even after wielding the Time Stone, I knew that the stones each have different resonances and I had little idea how they might respond to magic. In short, I got lucky."

"In all the timelines you witnessed—I assume you never went further than the "Thanos is stopped" plot point—"

Dr Strange nodded.

"—so if you had to guess, in how many of those timelines did I live? Did I always survive the snap, or was that only because you bargained with Thanos? And how often did I die straight after in battle?"

Strange leaned forward, his steepled fingers now just under his chin. "Is that number important?"

Stark sank back into the couch, his chin jutting forward, and his fingers drumming on the arm of the chair. He was attempting to feign disinterest, but had landed on a mix of annoyed and anxious. "Probably not to anyone but me."

"You died—most of us died—in most of the outcomes I saw." Strange ceded. "The snap truly was random—it took different people in different eventualities, so plenty of times, you survived without my intervention. But why so many questions? Are you suffering side effects from my having used the stone to resurrect you?"

Tony blinked. "Is that a thing that could happen?"

"I have been warned that having a laissez-faire attitude to the natural order of things, regardless of whether or not infinity stones are involved, may have unforeseen consequences." Strange sighed, conjuring a cup and saucer. "Tea?"

"Night cap, if you have one." Stark replied. Two fingers of scotch, neat in a high ball glass appeared in his hand.

He took a hesitant sip, then placed the glass down on a side table. "So is it possible that I'm just not meant to exist in this universe, Doc?"

"'Meant to' sounds a little fatalistic." Strange returned. "You do exist."

"But if this is the only timeline where I lived, maybe it explains—"

"Explains what?"

"Why I feel weird. I feel _weird_." Tony admitted it to himself and the sorcerer at the same time. "I'd tapped out, I was done. At peace even. And you brought me back...why?"

Strange stared at him like he was slightly daft. "Because you have a wife and daughter. Because you're one of Earth's heroes and therefore deserve a life after the apocalypse. Because the Stone was there and I _could_...am I getting the sense that you did not, in fact, _want_ to survive the battle?"

There was a teeny tinge of "ingrate" tone to Dr Strange's voice, but also a larger tone of puzzlement. It ought to have been obvious to anyone that Tony Stark had things worth living for. Especially to Stark himself.

Stark just stared at him, breathing heavily.

"Perhaps you ought to stay this evening, and we can run some tests." Strange offered. "At the very least we can read up on the Soul Stone and put your mind at rest."

"Thanks Doc, but I should really be going." He threw back the rest of his scotch and extended a hand. "And thanks, you know, formally, for bringing me back. Pep would have had you over for dinner by now, but she kinda found out you're also the one who encouraged me to sacrifice myself in the first place, so, don't expect her call."

Strange looked like he was trying not to smile at what was probably the most garbled thank you of all time. Tony Stark only ever lost his patented eloquence when either "thank you" or "sorry" were involved.

"Take care, Tony."

Strange gave the tired-looking engineer a long and thoughtful look, which bothered Stark. He seemed to garner more information by looking at Tony than through talking to him. Did wizards see auras? He had no idea.

Just one more thing he hated.

xxxxxx

Stark Tower was, thankfully, stocked with more booze. He felt the need to clear his head from the wizard's whiskey—somehow scotch had been tainted for the evening, so he opted for bourbon instead.

He seldom felt alone with F.R.I.D.A.Y around - he had been planning to mess around with some blue wire designs, but his mind drifted from nanotech shields to slip rings and mandalas and damn it he was thinking about wizard stuff again.

He flicked on the television.

xxxxxxx

"Stark? Tony?"

Stark snorted awake. He was still partially in his nanotech armor, the tell-tale bottle of bourbon slumped beside him like a tired friend. What, was he _dreaming_ about the wizard now too?

He made some effort to stretch and rub his eyes, when he realised the vision hadn't faded. The sorcerer was actually in his living room.

"Doc! What are you doing here?"

The sorcerer gave an apologetic wince. "I've been doing research on the stone since our conversation." He paused. "There's a margin of possibility that in using the stone to resurrect you, I bound your soul to me."

"I...don't know what that means."

That was a phrase that could only have been dragged out of Tony at 3am by a wizard.

"It may cause some feelings of ennui, restlessness..." The sorcerer sounded like he was evading a detailed explanation.

"You've just described a mid-life crisis. There must be more to it than that since you decided to pop over at the infomercial hour of the night to tell me about it." Stark raised his eyebrows, waiting for the sorcerer to elaborate.

"There are other potential symptoms." Strange said. "But I don't want to unnecessarily alarm you when it's probable they won't eventuate."

"Everything to do with magic alarms me. We've just survived an apocalypse brought about by an over-accessorized glove Michael Jackson would have shuddered to wear, and I have no idea whether that's even an unusual day in Magicsville."

Strange squinted one eye shut and rocked his head, thinking: "Magic-imbued relics do have a surprisingly high tendency to be clothing."

Stark smiled at that. "You'd know, Cape of Wonders." He paused, watching the burgundy velvet thing wave behind Strange with its magical wind effects. "Excuse my unenlightenment, but what do you even mean by "a soul" anyway?

"It might be easier if I show you." He beckoned for Stark to stand, then came closer til they were standing an easy arm length apart. Then he took Stark's hand, and tangled the fingers with his.

"This is...not where I thought the evening would take me." Stark quipped, uncomfortable with the intimacy of the sorcerer's palm, scarred and shaking slightly, against his own.

He drew Stark's hand back until it was touching his own chest, then he struck, palm out, at Stark's chest with his other hand. It was so fast, like being knocked over by a wave at the beach, that Stark worried the nanobot tech might respond without his permission.

Only... the suit was in front of him and had just slumped on the couch.

With him inside.

"Doc..." Stark was hyperventilating, heading toward a panic attack, when Strange's deep voice seemed to roll around him.

"You're not actually breathing at the moment Tony. I've projected you into your astral body. For want of a better word, you are looking at your soul, or spirit."

Stark was still wide-eyed, but he made a conscious effort to slow his non-breathing, and to look at his bluish transparent fingers waving back and forth in front of his face. He glanced down at his chest, and gasped as a glowing mandala, yellow tinged, but otherwise quite like the sorcerer's orange hand-shields. It rotated roughly where his RT unit should be, and featured a cord of golden yellow light, running away from him toward a similar mandala on the sorcerer's chest.

"This is the binding, huh? What happens if we..."

Stark went to tug on the cord but Strange's tone alarmed him, "Tony, no!"

Stark's eyes got impossibly wider as he stared across at the sorcerer. "If I yank it, does it come out? Please tell me the wizarding world binds souls together with something that takes more force to overcome than your average bath plug."

"I don't know what would happen if you pulled on it." Strange admitted. "You might be fine - freed even. Or you might drop dead. I need more time to study the effects of the Stone."

Strange made an odd beckoning motion and Stark found himself drawn forward into his body again. It was a slipping feeling...

He jolted back into his body. Strange leaned out a hand to steady him where he came to on the couch, and Stark had a flicker of de ja vu as he remembered catching the sorcerer and grounding him on Titan.

"So that's your soul." Strange smiled, aware that it would take Stark a moment to adjust, though he had been much gentler with the engineer than the Ancient One had been when she had shown him.

"And it's bound to yours?"

"For now."

"I saw it, but I mean, what does that binding even mean? Is it like, you saved my soul so now you own me? Cos Doc, that's some pretty heavy fineprint." He blinked, then stared again. "If I saved your soul somehow, would we be cosmically even?"

Strange patted Stark's shoulder in an effort to comfort him. "We'll find all this out in time. Soul magic is new to me...it's connected with some of the more unsavory elements of magic, like necromancy..."

Stark's voice raised: "You better not be telling me that you've made me into a god-damned zombie!"

Strange gave a half-smile, and sat down on the coffee table so he could be closer to Stark. "You're not a zombie. You're alive. The consequences of the magic may be relatively minor - something as simple as you feeling drawn to occupy the same physical space that I am in, for example. Or, they might be more complex. It might be, for example, that because our souls are linked, that if one of us dies, the other might too."

Stark looked sharply up at this. It hadn't occurred to him the consequences might go both ways. The sorcerer didn't seem too fussed about having his life and death contingent upon the safety of another human being though, so Stark forced himself to breathe.

The wizard couldn't get away with being the only cool one in the room.

"I think, if your schedule permits it, you should remain in New York City so we can study the effects of soul binding together. You're welcome to stay at the Sanctum, otherwise, I'll see you at Nine A.M.?"

The sorcerer had already stood, so rather than get up, a shaky Tony Stark saluted the wizard before he disappeared into a portal. He'd obviously suspected Stark preferred to process this revelation on his own, in Stark Tower, with his friend the bourbon bottle.

Only, he didn't.

Before the wizard preemptively left, he'd been going to say that he'd go stay the night at the Sanctum. Which was weird because it was only a short flight away and Tony was always more comfortable in his own space. Plus, the Sanctum was basically a real life version of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney - not the most comforting location to get a decent night's sleep.

"Uh, F.R.I.D.A.Y, can you let Miss Potts know at around 8am tomorrow that I've been delayed in the city working on a project at Stark Tower? I'll be a week, tops." He gave that estimate with nothing whatsoever to base it on, but hoped it would buy him time.

"Miss Potts isn't going to like that, Boss. You're supposed to be retired. At the farm."

He sighed. "I know."

The simple life. He hadn't managed to live it for five years before...no, not even five. Those five years, part of him had never quite let go of what the crazy sorcerer had said to him on Titan. He'd tortured himself trying to figure out what "there was no other way" meant. It was clear Strange had expected the decimation, or more accurately, the bicimation, to occur. Which meant Stark had always thought the wizard somehow expected him to solve the problem—beat Thanos after the fact. He'd driven himself mad trying to invent spacecraft, weapons or even time travel to get either the gauntlet, or _the dusted_, back. To no avail.

At least, not until Scott Lang had popped out of the quantum realm with a crazy idea.

Now, there was a new crisis. Not an Earth shattering one, but something else Stark had brought to darken Pepper's door. It was just a farce by now, wasn't it? Tony Stark, the unreliable partner.

Add _unreliable fathe_r to that list.

He sighed, and snatched up the bourbon, taking it with him to bed.

xxxxxxx

"Stark, you're early." The sorcerer was wearing the cape again today, which not only made him look douchier, but older somehow.

The engineer smiled in a way that didn't reach his eyes behind the mirrored Lennon sunglasses he was sporting, and wiggled a venti Starbucks. "Early bird catches the ubiquitous worm, or some such."

Strange let him in, and Stark went to resume a chair in the parlour, but instead, Strange beckoned for him to go up the stairs and into the sanctum's library.

He took a quick look at the leather bound tomes, spines gold-inked in a number of languages, and the wide walnut study desk, at the head of which, Strange had just sat.

"If you make noise in here, do the books shush you themselves?" He deadpanned.

Strange raised his eyebrows just enough to acknowledge that a joke had been made, without giving any indication as to whether or not he found it funny. "Take a seat."

He opened a notebook, and lay a fountain pen on the page. Immediately, it propped itself up midair, as though it were ready to take notes.

"Seriously?" Stark eyed the pen.

"My own handwriting is barely legible." Strange explained.

"Okay, but, heard of a dictaphone? Talk-to-text apps? No? Nothing?"

"Relax, Tony. I just want to ask some questions to see whether there's anything on your mind that might be pertinent to the question of the Soul Stone."

"Wait—you're not that kind of a doctor...a shrink...are you? You were a neurosurgeon." Stark stuttered.

"Correct. And now, I'm a very busy Master of the Mystic Arts, so if we could move this along promptly?"

Stark was silent, which Strange took for consent.

"Have you experienced any weird dreams?"

"No."

The pen scribbled.

"What about the desire to do things that are not your habit, or to go places you wouldn't usually go?"

"Not until last night."

Strange looked up.

"I'd been intending to fly straight to Stark Tower, but on impulse I came to the Sanctum."

"And you were keen to be back this morning." Strange noted, the pen scribbling quickly.

"Is that important? What's it writing?" Stark craned to see, but Strange cut him off.

"And you came to see me because you wanted to understand more about why you are alive?"

"I guess...I don't know." Stark looked flustered. "Ever since you left me on Titan with that cryptic clue, I spent forever trying to figure out what your thought processes were. Why me? Why give up the Stone? Why let the bicimation happen? I mean—even now that it's all over, I get it, but I don't quite _get_ it. You lost five years of your own life that you're not getting back. So did a lot of people. How do you make a choice like that based on a vision?"

The pen kept scribbling, but a furrow had formed on Strange's brow. "You were ruminating on these things _before_ I used the Stone on you?"

Stark drummed on the table with his left hand, "Yeah."

"And you're not the kind of man to let a puzzle go before you've solved it." Strange prompted.

"My puzzles are usually physics principles, or international politics—not the final words of frighteningly utilitarian wizards."

"I'm not sure 'frighteningly utilitarian' is a compliment." Strange sassed, averting eye contact.

Stark shrugged.

"What about emotions? Any mood swings, laughing fits, depersonalisation, depression..."

"That one. Depersonalisation. That's basically feeling distant, yeah?"

"That's correct."

Stark pulled his face into a sort of grimace. "I have that one. But I'm not entirely sure that it's new. Plenty of people have slapped that label on me."

"...girlfriends?"

"Tabloids." Stark corrected. "There was a whole pop psych article once on why the Iron Man suit hides my face..."

"...and here I'd assumed it was because you didn't want to get shot in it."

Stark looked up, grateful. Neither of them were loving poring over this crap, but at least they were doing it together.

Wait...

"So are you feeling odd when you look in the mirror, or is it more distance from your usual hobbies and relationships?"

"The latter." Stark said, "But..."

"And Miss Potts and your daughter? Have they said or noticed anything?"

"I haven't asked them." The way Stark's eyes slid away was itself a guilty confession.

"You haven't told Pepper anything about feeling distant?" Strange pressed.

"Our relationship style is not high on verbal communication. Pep's love language is more 'acts of service'..." Tony rambled.

"Hmm..." Was all Strange said.

"You're even guilt-tripping me like a real shrink." Stark rolled his eyes.

"I assure you, I have no desire to interfere in your _love-life._" Strange said the word like it might actually be poisonous. "Just trying to get to the bottom of things."

"Speaking of which, this magical binding cord goes both ways, doesn't it? Have _you_ had any symptoms?" Stark didn't really care, he just wanted to get the attention off himself for a moment so he could breathe, but he was fascinated to see an awkward pucker appear in Strange's brow.

"You _have_." His eyes glimmered. "What kind?"

"I've been dreaming about your daughter, Morgan." Strange said stiffly.

That was perhaps the last thing Stark would ever have expected the sorcerer to say.

"Dreaming _what_ about her?" Stark's voice had hardened.

"Harmless dreams I assure you. Building a fort out of bed sheets. Being the voice for some scrappy plush monkey. Playing a xylophone." Strange waved a hand, but Stark caught it.

"Those aren't just dreams. Those are memories. My memories - of _me_, playing with my daughter."

"I know." Strange removed his hand from Stark's grip. "Occasionally I experience a psychosomatic parental fondness for her, which must be magical in origin, considering I've never met the child."

Stark felt the wind knocked out oh him.

"This is insane. I'm feeling _nothing_ when I look at my family, and you're here dreaming about them? Don't suppose you've suddenly got the hots for Pepper?"

"You _don't_?" Strange cut boldly across what was shaping up to be one of Stark's more lively tirades.

Stark swallowed.

"I need some air."

"Tony—" Strange went to stand up, follow him, but suddenly, he thought better of it.

Let him calm down and return on his own.

xxxxxxx

Pacing around the wizard's parlour had only been so helpful. Processing time was good, nay, necessary, but it made other symptoms become suddenly and acutely clear.

He felt at home here - in this stupid Victorian Gothic parlour. Which probably meant that he was feeling some of Strange's feelings too.

When he looked up at the doorway to the library, he felt a tug, right about where that glowing yellow cord had been.

He was _pining_. For Strange.

Like a pet.

"No," he told himself and paced some more. This wasn't real — none of it was real. It was all just magic messing with his inner chemistry. After all, you break down feelings and they were no more than hormones: chemical signals flying round the endocrine system.

"Tony..."

He looked up and over his shoulder, and realised Strange was now standing in the parlour, looking at him with sad eyes.

"It's okay Doc, we've just got to power through this and reverse it." Tony gritted his teeth. Staring at a spot on the floor, he noted—"I think I'm feeling your fondness for this place, kinda like it's the only place in the world I'm safe?"

Strange met his eyes and gave him a gentle nod.

"I'm also starting to think that this cord is more of a leash...it's starting to hurt when we're not in the same room."

"Hurt how?" There was real concern in Strange's eyes now.

"Here." Stark tapped his chest.

Strange grimaced, and began to turn the organge dials on the magic that encircled his wrists. Whatever the spell did, glyphs landed on both Stark's chest and Strange's.

"Okay. I'm going to give you my best working theory. And then I'm going to involve some of the other sorcerers before either of us get too much worse."

"Either of us?" Stark raised an eyebrow.

"I'm having similar pains — have been having them, for longer." The wizard conceded. "Until you arrived last night, I thought it was just me."

"So what's your theory?"

Strange tilted at the cheekbone as though the words were difficult to pinch out. "When I performed the spell, I wasn't particularly wary about side effects—you and I are colleagues, so it never occurred to me that anything else bound us together." Strange sighed. "But I failed to take account of how long I was gone. For me, the five years of being dead was an instant, but for you, it was five years of wondering, even obsessing over the last thing I said to you. So before I'd even used the stone, there was already a bond between us."

"You're saying the spell backfired because I couldn't let things go?" Tony's brown eyes grew black.

"No, no, Tony, I'm saying _I_ screwed up. I failed to take into account your perspective. With this Stone, I'm an amateur."

"Wait—you've still got it? I thought all the stones were returned?"

"Captain America could hardly be expected to take the Soul Stone back to Vormir. He struggles to operate electronic hotel door-keys; you wouldn't ask him to fly a space ship?" Strange narrowed his eyes as if Stark was a cretin.

In spite of everything, Stark laughed.

"So if you have the Stone, you can reverse the spell?"

He was surprised to see Strange shake his head.

"Well, I can...but then, you die."

"Oh. Well...before the spell I was dead anyway, and from what I understand, this spell affects you too. This way at least one of us—"

Strange held up his hand. "You're remarkably persistent in the self-sacrifice department, has anyone ever told you that?"

Stark laughed, remembering: "_You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.._."

"I think I would just...cut the wire?" Strange said out loud.

Stark's nostrils flared. "Uh, Doc? I think you might be reading my _thoughts_, now. Is it time to call the head wizards in?"

"Hate to tell you Stark, I sort of _am_ the head wizard. Or I will be..."

"_I never saw your future, only its possibilities. You have such a capacity for goodness. You've always excelled, not because you crave success but because of your fear of failure._

_It's what made me a great doctor._

_It's precisely what's kept you from greatness_."

"Who's the bald lady?" Stark furrowed his brow, looking at Strange, trying to reconcile the man in the cape with the person described in the memory.

"That would be the Ancient One. The last Sorcerer Supreme." Strange folded a bothered hand over his brow.

"Right." Stark said, despite the fact that description was no help at all.

"Yes, we need back up. Now."

xxxxxx

Strange turned the notes over to Wong, to avoid having to repeat any awkwardness they had already covered. He and Master Hamir stared at Stark and Strange.

"Option One: we kill him." Master Hamir said thoughtfully.

"Not an option." Strange cut in.

"Dr Strange, your ability to function must not be compromised. The universe depends on you." Hamir chided.

"I'm not exactly chump change, Lao Tzu. I _am_ an Avenger." Stark grumbled.

But the old man turned. "You protect one world. This man protects reality itself! Not the same!"

Strange smothered a laugh at the expression on Stark's face. "Option Two?"

"Stark could stay here, learn magic. Find ways of shielding himself from the Stone's influence." Wong said.

"This is probably the happy medium." Hamir added.

"What's Option Three?" Stark demanded, not exactly thrilled with the prospect of signing on to learn a discipline that more often than not blew up in his face.

"You do nothing, and accept that the universe does not make mistakes." Wong said.

Hamir grunted at this.

Strange jutted his head forward. "Wait...you don't mean...just let ourselves become _infatuated_ with each other? He has a wife and kid, Wong!" Strange spat.

"The bond you currently share is no more intense than the deepest of friendships." Hamir stated.

"Except we can see each other's _memories._" Strange reminded him.

"Only intermittently." Wong said.

"I still prefer Option One." Hamir held up his hands. "It could be painless."

"Think I'm starting to prefer Option One too." Stark joked, sinking onto the arm rest of his favourite parlour chair.

_Strange's_ favourite parlour chair.

"Okay. Master Hamir. Could you please inform Kamar Taj that they will shortly have a new pupil? Thank you."

Hamir disappeared into a room on an upper level.

"Wong, can you organize a research team to hit the library and see whether there is anything in the necromancy tomes that might help Stark and I keep our independence? Even if we have to reverse the spell and bring him back another way."

"I will try." Wong sounded skeptical. "But you must know—you give some of your own soul to bring someone back, which is why their recovered soul belongs to yours. There is no way Stark can live and be completely unbound from you."

"See what you can do."

He turned back around to Stark. "Shall I order pizza?"

"Flippant, given you just promised me to a magical training camp without asking my consent."

"Well unless you want to be dead, or _married_ to me, I didn't see any other course of action."

Strange put his head in his hands.

"They take you pretty seriously around here, you know, for a newbie."

Strange looked up, wondering where Stark was going with this. "Sorcery is a meritocracy."

Stark laughed. "Yeah, but you've been a sorcerer for what, eight years, minus the five you spent as ash?"

"Plus two-and-a-half that I spent in the Dark Dimension." Strange added offhandedly.

"Okay so, five-and-a-half years. And you're already the best there is?"

"I've still got a lot to learn about the rules." Strange flashed him a smile.

"Like: don't give pieces of your soul to your co-workers." Stark prompted.

"Like that." Strange sighed. "Look, I thought I could bring you back and give you back the life you had before. But it seems more and more like that's not going to happen. I can train you in magic, and hope you get strong enough to return to your old life some day. But I should warn you..." he held out a shaking hand, "I'm still waiting for my hands to be fixed."

Stark fixed him with his best you-can't-be-serious glare. "What if I just go back? Ignore the weirdness? Power through it?"

"You're welcome to try. But it will start to hurt." He said it with such certainty that Stark opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

"You're constantly having to use magic to dampen the pain for both of us. That's why Hamir is pissed...I'm basically leeching off your magic right now."

"It's much less effort if we're in close proximity." Strange acceded.

"What happens if you stop?"

Strange quirked an eyebrow. "We get to know each other a whole lot better than we do now."

"I think I'd better call Pepper."

xxxxxx

Stark was set up in the room next to Strange's at the sanctum. He'd been there for almost a week, and was due to start at Kamar Taj the following day, but Strange would have to accompany him, meaning Wong would babysit the New York Sanctum in its Master's absence.

Pepper had offered to move Morgan back to Stark Tower so they could be closer to him, but he'd declined. Once he had the sling ring mastered, he could go anywhere, and it didn't seem fair to uproot Pepper and Morgan from the wholesome sleepy lives they had planned just because Tony Stark was embroiled in another drama.

They may not have been highly verbal as a couple, but Tony could tell that this final abandonment, final secret, final _weirdness_ had been the last straw for Pepper. After a few calls, she'd talked about drafting a document to enshrine Tony's rights as a father.

He knew that meant she was also working quietly on divorce papers.

He knew it should hurt, but that pang that _should_ have been there for Pepper, for losing her, just wasn't. That sharp twisting ache only meant one thing these days: the wizard he was chained to was too far away.

"Hey Pumpkin, you be a good girl for Mummy while Daddy's away." He'd begun that evening when Pepper put Morgan on the phone. But she'd been all excited about a cicada shell she'd found on the south fence, and was proudly telling him that they burrow for seven years, and when they come up again, they die.

Somehow it brought tears to his eyes.

When the call was over, Strange came in and wordlessly put a hand on Stark's shoulder, much as he'd done the night he'd demonstrated Tony's astral body to him.

Warmth flooded through his bicep, filling his heart with a soothing, tingling sensation.

"Are you mojoing me right now, Doc?" He said with wet eyes and gritted teeth. "Because I'm warning you: don't."

"No, Tony. I'm just...I can literally feel your pain."

"You shouldn't have brought me back."

Strange stood there for a time while Stark pretended he wasn't crying.

Then the two went to their separate beds.

xxxxxx

Kamar Taj turned out to literally be in Nepal. Stark had half-expected it to be in some magical realm only accessible by portal or something. But F.R.I.D.A.Y. was even able to mark their coordinates on GPS.

All the other new initiates wore the same white robes Stark had complained about wearing. The compromise had been that he could wear the RT unit under his clothes—as long as he didn't use it against anyone in the arena.

The hand to hand combat was no biggie. But he had a hard time surrendering to magic in order to be able to control it. He also tended to speak out of turn —and get reprimanded by the teachers for his lack of discipline.

Strange on the other hand, was _extremely_ disciplined. At break, Stark watched him across the courtyard, embroiled in some sort of teacher's meeting with other ranks that had colours Stark didn't recognize. None of them wore Stephen's blue, anyway.

_Strange's_ blue. He internally corrected himself. The Master of the Mystic Arts had a disturbing ability to compartmentalise, he noted. Watching him tend to the matters presented to him, without so much as looking up in Stark's direction, you'd never guess he felt the same queer pull.

Stark waited for the crowd to thin, then approached. "Hey, Caped Crusader, this isn't going to work. I can't play nicely with others, and 'surrendering to magic' is stupid. I quit."

Strange checked his watch. "Don't you usually fail at something for at least _half a day_ before giving up? It's only 11:30."

"Whose fault is that? You weird yoga enthusiasts rise with the sun." Stark bickered. "Seriously, I think I'd do better if you trained me."

An exasperated sorcerer shook his head. "Tony, these people know what they're doing."

"They're treating me like a sheep. I'm a _wolf_, and I need to be reared by one."

Strange rolled his eyes. "Okay, I have five minutes. Private tutorial. Now." He spun a portal. On the other side were snow-capped mountains. Stark followed him through, and immediately his teeth started chattering.

It reminded him of Siberia.

"When I faced the same problem you are—the reluctance to surrender to magic—my teacher dropped me here and left me. My choices were, 'surrender to magic and portal home' or 'die'. Stark opened his mouth to complain, but Strange was already making another portal, this time to somewhere sandy and sunny.

The pair stepped through again.

"This tiny island is Narrahito. It is uninhabited...one of thousands like it in the Pacific Ocean." Strange flicked his wrist, and the RT unit clipped to Stark's chest floated into his hand. "If you stay here, you certainly won't die, but I will be in Kamar Taj — thousands of miles away. So it will hurt. Surrendering to the pulse of magic is like leaning into an air current as you fly. Portal back to me. Or stay in Narrahito. Your choice."

With that, Strange stepped through a portal and disappeared.

"Urgh! Wizards." Stark muttered, tempted to pick up the sling ring and hurl it into the ocean. Instead, he took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. Already, the pang of longing in his chest was intensifying, distracting.

An odd thought crossed his mind. Did Strange mean for him to surrender to magic? Or to _the magic_—the Stone's spell.

Was there a difference?

Experimentally, like a person might dip their toe into a pool to gauge its temperature, Stark relaxed a little of his resistance to his fondness for the sorcerer.

There was a layer of genuine admiration for what Strange could do, and who he was as an Avenger. The man had been through a lot. Trauma, suffering, self-sacrifice. He wielded uncanny power. He thought of the greater good, but still cared for individual lives. He was intelligent. Resourceful. Aside from his frankly terrible tendency to risqué wink during battles, he was a good colleague to have. Perhaps made better by the fact that so few of Stark's other colleagues had managed not to disappoint. Strange had been there on Titan. And again during the Endgame on Earth. And he had been there for him afterward.

It shouldn't be hard by now for Stark to admit that Strange was a colleague that verged upon a friend. Breathing deeply, the pain in his chest subsided a little.

Excited, he tried the portal again.

Nada.

Fine. He had to go deeper then, apparently. Stark let himself admit that despite how crazy this situation was, how it had gutted what was left of his marriage to Pepper—there were worse people on the planet to have one's soul be cosmically bound to. Strange might have been the idiot who got them into this mess, but he was also trying to be ethical: keeping his distance, maintaining what boundaries they could, yet trying his best to help Stark at every turn. Hell, it wasn't every day a person gave up an infinity stone, a piece of their soul, or their privacy for the foreseeable future, just to keep you alive. Strange had given up all three. In the former case, Strange had ulterior motives. But the latter two? Big commitments from someone who owed Tony nothing.

"What? C'mon. What do you want from me?" He demanded of the sling ring, when yet again, only orange sparks sputtered from his fingertips.

What else was there to surrender to? Unless...

Kicking the sand as he did so, Stark admitted that the Stone was giving him feelings for Dr Stephen Strange that he'd rather not have. Creepy, out-of-nowhere romantic feelings that had to be magical in origin. Thoughts about how soft Stephen's lips might be. Murky ideas of giving in to their bond and letting Stephen have him for an evening, whatever that meant. The image was so sharp in his eye...

_Fuck...he wanted to have sex with the wizard._

Stark shook the thought from his head and hoped like hell Strange wouldn't grift that one out of their mutual mental eavesdropping. But if letting himself think_ that_ wasn't "surrendering to magic" he didn't know what the hell was.

He raised his hand and began to spin.

Still nothing happened.

xxxxx

It was on dusk and Stark still hadn't returned. There was a sweaty pallor on Strange's brow that came of ignoring the immense pain is his chest.

_And the worry._

"I never approved of this teaching method when the Ancient One used it. Nor do I approve now." Wong said, having arrived at Kamar Taj once Hamir had taken over his shift at the New York Sanctum.

"C'mon, I dropped him on a sandy beach, not K-9." Strange argued.

"You don't need the cold to torture him because you have that." Wong tapped Strange's chest, not fooled. "This way, you torture yourself too. Congratulations. You're an idiot."

Strange turned away so Wong wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing him laugh, caught out.

Xxxxxx

The stars were becoming visible in the clear blue-black night. Stark was sitting now, knees pulled up to his chest, throbbing with pain. Sure, he'd had worse—lots worse—but somehow the whole exhausting situation made Stark want a good cry and a bottle of bourbon.

"Okay, I don't care." He ranted. "I don't care if Stephen leaves me to rot on this stupid island. I don't care if I never learn magic. Or see my daughter again. I really don't care if this stupid ache brings makes my eyes water...and I don't care that maybe, _some_ of these feelings began before the spell."

_Maybe as far back as Titan._

"It doesn't matter. I don't care. I'm done."

He lay on his back, and used the sling ring sparks like a sparkler to write "I'm done" in the sky. But in the center of the "d" the stars were suddenly out of synch with the Southern Hemisphere.

He popped a cautious head through.

There was the courtyard from Kamar Taj that he'd left.

"Tony?" Strange leaned down and pulled Stark through the portal, fearful it would close on the engineer and decapitate him if he kept poking his head through it.

"What made you decide to draw the portal vertically—" Strange was interrupted when Stark clung to him a bear hug.

"Damn that hurt." Stark said into his shoulder. Strange wrapped a grateful arm around Tony, so pleased he'd managed that difficult first surrender.

He remembered how it had been for him.

But Tony wouldn't unclasp. "Look, Stephen, I know it's weird, and not what either of us wanted, but from now on, I just wanna be where you are, okay? I'll keep learning magic if it will help us out, but no more deliberate separation."

"Tony..." Stephen's voice was clearly horrified. "I didn't mean it to be _torture_...just motivation."

He thrilled at having Tony back, at holding him, at having him pressed against—

_He stopped that train of thought right there. _

He let Stark go, took a deliberate step back.

But Stark's hand struck out and grasped Stephen's wrist, drawing him closer again. "I mean it, Stephen. The whole 'surrender' bit made me realise—this thing is bigger than both of us—but it doesn't _hurt_ as much when you don't _fight_ it."

Strange faced Stark and deliberately withdrew his hand. "Other things, aside from pain,_ could_ happen, however." His voice was deep, ominous.

Stark dragged his hands over his face. "Do you absolutely have to be uptight all the time? What's the worst thing that could happen?"

"If what I'm reading about necromancers is true, they're _dubious_ about the concept of consent. So, and this is in no particular order, I could force you to have sex with me. I could enslave you to my will. I could..."

Strange never got any further than that because Stark grabbed his jaw and kissed him. A crashing wave broke over both of them...Stark was flooded by memories: Strange mentally undressing Stark as he quipped in the parlour. His awkward heartache when he watched Tony die, knowing that the futures he'd seen with the Time Stone gave him no real right to consider Tony a close friend, and even less right, considering he'd used Tony like a chess piece to save the world. Memories of his utter dismay at not even being able to give Stark his happily ever after. Believing that every move he made to help the world or anyone in it also seemed to bring side effects of trauma and suffering. Worrying about Morgan at night when he couldn't sleep, and staving off his desire to call Pepper and ask how she was. Casting magic constantly to keep Stark safe from _himself._ Memories of lying still in bed, able to feel Tony, awake in the next room, knowing that all he'd have to do would be to crook a finger and Tony would come running; he wouldn't be able to help but come running...but choosing to lie there in the dark, in silence, in pain instead..

The stress had been eating him alive.

"You know, for someone who secretly worries they are a sadist, you have a lot of masochistic tendencies." Tony laughed, and kissed him again.

Strange pulled himself up from the kiss, collected himself. "You do realise I didn't send you to that island to make you surrender _to me..._"

Stark laughed, and put a hand on his shoulder, ignoring the the movements of the cloak. "I know I've been learning magic for less than a day, but you said it's a meritocracy, and I'm naturally gifted, at, well, most things, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it: I know what this magic wants. And I think we both know it's only about _half_ the magic's doing...maaaybe 70:30."

"You had feelings for me before the spell?" Strange's nose crinkled in confusion.

Stark took a deep breath. "I didn't know that's what they were until recently, but yeah. Your turn."

Strange just stared at him.

"C'mon Doc! Our memories are sharing an inbox lately — I've literally seen you check out my ass _from your perspective_."

Strange took a deep breath that seemed to exhale all the tension from his body. That tense way he moved and walked relaxed; the cold fire that burned in his eyes warmed.

He looked years younger: softer, vulnerable.

"I...felt something too. Before. On Titan. I saw you in all those visions...got to know you...admired you. I couldn't bear for the world to—" he stopped himself. "I couldn't bear to lose you, Tony. I didn't know...all of _this_..." he gestured to the intimate space between them. "I didn't actually know I was capable of male proclivity. But I knew I admired you."

Stark laughed, and paused. "Your brain's playing the R rated channel too huh?"

Strange gave a small half-smile.

"You have no idea."

Xxxxxxxxx

Strange had been up to admitting his feelings, and even that some of them were natural. But no matter how much Tony flirted, taunted, wheedled, argued, touched him, he could not be moved on the fact that it was _unethical_ for a necromancer to romance his necromancee.

The idea that Strange was protecting his honour was both amusing and annoying, since a) Stark was older b) Stark was more worldly - he gave Hefner a run for his money in his youth and c) Stark was more determined than ever that he genuinely_ wanted_ this.

In the two days since Tony had learned to portal, he had really taken to magic. Strange knew it was partly his nature as a genuis show-off to excel at everything, but partly because he wanted to prove to Strange he could protect himself if he wanted to...but that he didn't want to.

"You do realise the paradox here: ignoring my free will to _protect_ my free will. Right?"

It was 8pm and they were having another version of the same fight. Stark paced in the parlour. Strange had refused any bodily contact with Stark that overstepped the bounds of a pat on the arm since that night. He was sitting in his Victorian armchair, drinking tea.

"You don't _have_ free-will Tony. It belongs to me right now, remember?" He quipped. "Why don't you pour all this energy into practicing your shielding?"

"Distracting me with homework, Stephen? What am I, twelve?"

Strange took another sip. "Only behaviorally."

Fine. Stephen wanted him to get better at magic?

_He could work with that. _

"I'll be in the library if you _want_ me."

Xxxxxx

It took a lot of research, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. operating as a translator, but two obsessive days were enough to get his plan together. He'd been learning about shielding and binding spells in Magic 101, he simply had to reverse engineer them.

And if Strange happened to see any of his memories due to their soul entanglement, well, it would just look like he was doing his homework, wouldn't it?

Stark's absolute favourite part of magic was that it was often about will-power. Strange, granted, had a will of iron. But Stark, he'd _patented_ it, and had the suits to prove it.

He waited until after 11. Strange had gone to bed at 10, so Stark used his suit to drift silently up to Strange's window and look in.

Asleep.

_Good._

He slipped back in through the window in his own room, doffed the suit with a click, then cast the counter-spells from Strange's own doorway.

The cloak, thankfully, was mooning around downstairs.

He wasn't sure it was working until the final shield Strange had erected came down, and Stark was swamped with heartache and desire. He was doubly proud of himself for thinking to throw a light sleeping spell into the mix—otherwise that tidal wave of feelings would have _definitely_ woken Strange up.

He climbed on top of Strange now, grinding his groin against the sleeping sorcerer, kissing his neck, pulling his sleep shirt off him, then, finally, binding his hands and feet to the four posts of the bed with magic before rousing him from the sleep spell.

"Tony..." he groaned, groggily awake.

"You won't push past my free will, Stephen? Guess I'll have to push past yours." He kissed the man prostrate beneath him, eliciting a confused groan.

"Tony, what are you doing?" Stephen went to push Stark off his lap, but his hands were caught.

Stark ran a suggestive hand down his torso and gripped Stephen, who was becoming hard, through his sleep-pants.

"Ungh, Tony! What the hell are you—"

"Molesting you until you say 'uncle', Doc." Stark grinned. "Like my magic cuffs? I made em myself."

"You really think the spells you learnt in a week's worth of magic training are going to hold _me_?"

Tony licked a thoughtful stripe up Strange's neck and ran his teeth over the shell of the sorcerer's ear. "Personally," he stage-whispered, "I hope they don't."

Something fused in Strange's eyes. Stark found himself casting unbinding spells before he knew what he was doing. _What the?_

"I warned you." Was all Strange said.

The hair on the back of Stark's neck tingled as he realised Strange was magically _controlling_ him.

Strange's hands and feet were free now. Without thought, Stark dove back on top of him on the bed, only to have Strange twist and pin him beneath. Strange kissed him, and pressed his hands posessively over Stark's biceps, pectorals...with a flick of the wrist, he tapped an orange glowing finger tip to Stark's nipple.

Suddenly, his flesh was alive with goosebumps.

"Magical enhancement is cheating, Doc." Stark bickered.

Strange's blue eyes flashed ice: "Nothing is cheating when I _own_ you."

At a frantic pace Strange slid the pair of them onto their sides, so that he was spooning Stark. It felt dizzying, the rush of magical force surging around him, through him...There were no bindings, but Strange didn't need them to compel Stark to do what was on his mind, so when Strange caressed Stark's lips with his right hand, licking and biting the back of his neck all the while, Stark knew Strange wanted him to suck on his fingers, and obligingly opened his mouth.

Then Strange withdrew, and clamped his hand over Stark's nose and mouth.

Stark couldn't breathe.

He struggled for a moment, panicking, but then a queer thought entered his head: _Strange gave him his life, he could take it away. _

It was thrilling.

Just as Stark relaxed into it, Strange let him up for air, still moving, kissing, biting at his neck from the side, stroking possesively at his adam's apple, his throat...then his hand slid south, skittering over his stomach, which made Stark twitch and flex.

With another flick of the wrist, the remains of their garments disappeared, and Strange bit Stark's shoulder, kissed across his back, as he brushed fingertips over Stark's inner thigh, the mound of his groin, deliberately ignoring Stark's straining cock.

"You really go from one extreme to the other." Stark's voice was a hoarse whisper. "Afraid of what I'll do to you if you let me move?"

Strange ignored him, using the wetness at Stark's tip to rub shuddering concentric circles on the sensitive head that had Stark's hips bucking against him. Finally, that roving hand began stroking his shaft, letting Stark get_ close_. Strange ground his own hardness against Stark's bare arse, then, he drew his hand back, leaving Stark _wanting_.

He keened in frustration.

Strange responded by evoking another orange glow to his fingertips before sliding his palm over Stark's cheeks, and pressing down into his cleft. He began groaning as Strange reached his prostrate.

He didn't know how long he had been sweating, moaning, crying for before Strange finally entered him, wrapping a protective arm across his chest, kissing his neck, and pounding. Stark could think of absolutely nothing else but the sorcerer—his magic was surging inside him, his body coiled tightly around him, in him, his lips, his teeth on his neck. Stark's senses hummed with pleasure, surrender, the scent of Stephen. The mandala around his heart ached, pulling him back into the other man...

Then everything went black.

Xxxx

Stark awoke in his own bed, not Strange's. _Huh._

He was pretty sure, if his general soreness and his grimy post-sex body was to be believed, it hadn't been a dream.

More than that — the tingling pain that had bound him to Strange wasn't _there._ Stark closed his eyes and, stiffly, folded himself into a lotus. Then he peeked one eye down at his astral form, residing in his body:

The gold mandala was still _there_, turning slowly, but the cord leading from it was gone.

Stark stood up, straightening himself. "All a bit _Snow White_ for my taste, F.R.I.D.A.Y." Or_ Beauty and the Beast_, or any of those foolish Disney stories where everything was sorted out with a kiss. Okay, maybe _more_ than a kiss...

Fairytales soon had him thinking of Morgan.

Since the pain was gone, and he was now free to do do so, he had a shower, then portalled his way to Stark Farm.

"Shit...Tony...did you just do_ magic_?"

Pepper almost dropped her cup of coffee as he stepped into the living room.

"Daddy!" Morgan ran into his arms. He swung her above his head.

"Go get your trike and we'll race outside."

She ran, bellowing, off to her room while Pepper interjected: "Tony, it's Tuesday. She's got playgroup."

"I'll drop her off." He held up his hand and wiggled his sling ring.

Pepper folded her arms. "No way. You disappear two weeks and now you're a wizard?"

"Sorcerer." Tony corrected. Then, he went forward and held Pepper gently by the shoulders. "I disappeared on you a lot longer ago than that. I'm sorry Pep. While I'm here, I'll sign anything you want me to."

Pepper bit her lip. "Okay." Was all she said.

"Excellent." He threw his arms around her, and she laughed, to hide her shock.

Then Stark clapped his hands. "C'mon Morgan, race to the end of the fence, then the victor wins one free ride to preschool."

"Use the SUV, Tony. No portals!" Pepper called after them.

Xxxxxx

Strange was not surprised on finding Tony's room empty. He'd realised the moment he'd come to, that somehow, consummating their desires had in fact broken the the magical pull of the soul fragment. The spell was still intact. Tony was alive, and there were still connected by the mandalas, but the unintended side effects of the spell seemed to have cleared up.

He wasn't about to admit this out loud, but...Tony Stark had been right. Surrender was the answer.

And now, Stark had gone home.

Strange twisted his fingers clockwise and drew the Soul Stone out of its secret, invisible hiding place. This time, he wasn't going to make the mistake of wearing it so obviously around his neck, as he had the Time Stone. He'd thought, at first, that perhaps this Stone could replace the one he'd lost...become the center of his magic practices...but however dangerous time magic had been, it had had a logic, a metric at its core. Soul magic, however, seemed to revolve around the primal and the sacrificial: bonds, emotions, relationships, feelings...and Strange was nowhere near as good at wielding or manipulating those.

He placed the stone back into its hiding place.

He'd managed to do one good thing with the stone, at least, even if it had come with a serious side order of complication. Stark was alive. He was free now, to see his daughter, reunite with Pepper...

And Strange was free to focus on his job: protect reality.

He opened a portal to Kamar Taj's library.

Xxxxxxxx

Strange didn't return to the New York Sanctum until after 4pm.

"Does 'Hello Stranger' work as a greeting, given your surname?" A familiar voice asked.

Strange rolled his eyes. "Tony, what are you doing here?"

Stark flicked his eyes from side to side before fixing a comical, confused expression on his face: "I _live _here."

"Temporarily."

"Hmm...let's make it permanent."

Stark brought his eyes up to meet the cold, distant look he could see Strange _willing_ into his demeanour.

"I think I need a new bedroom though. Yours will do."

Strange frowned. "But you can go home now. You're, in essence, cured."

"Stephen...you might have to put on the all-knowing, wise-man schtick as part of your job description, but let's get one thing clear: You are not the boss of me. Even when I _let_ you be the boss of me, you were not the boss of me."

Strange raised a quizzical eyebrow. "That statement is nonsensical."

"What I'm saying is, _I order you_ to lose the cape, the forty-plus years that the weight of the universe adds to your age, and your preconceptions that you can protect, save, parent, control, or otherwise handle me. I'm, well, _me_." Stark gave Strange a cocky grin. "And I don't take no for an answer."

With this, he strode up to a hesitant Strange, grabbed a disgruntled cloak by the collar and flung it off the sorcerer's shoulders, and drew the taller man in for a kiss.

He felt, rather than saw, the tension and loneliness melt out of Stephen's frame.

"What I'm saying is...wanna be my boyfriend?"

Strange spluttered, then hesitated. "Despite what's recently transpired, it still feels odd to admit."

Stark grinned. "Nothing's ever normal around here." He looked at his watch. "Speaking of normal, I've got to go pick up Morgan from preschool in eighteen minutes. Strictly a no-capes, casual-wear sort of deal. Wanna come?"

Stark knew Strange pretty well by that point, but the sweetness, the softness in the sorcerer's eyes was almost entirely new to him.

The sorcerer clicked his fingers and his outfit transitioned. A good looking, confident, but exceedingly polite, even mild-mannered air overtook him along with his baby-blue shirt and dark slacks.

There were whole new sides of Strange to learn, Stark marveled, as they stepped through a portal together.

_He couldn't wait._

The End


End file.
